[CLUE-Tech] Solitaire, anyone? (crypto stuff)

[Jed S. Baer]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 21:35:51 -0600
David Anselmi <anselmi at americanisp.net> wrote:

> Timothy C. Klein wrote:
> > * Jed S. Baer (thag at frii.com) wrote:
> > 
> >>Hi Folks.
> >>
> >>Well, I finally finished reading Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon".
> >>Probably, most folks who find such interesting have already read it,
> >>but if you haven't, by all means, get a copy.
> 
> > Unfortunately, _Snow Crash_ and _The Diamond Age_, while good books,
> > both sort of seemed to fizzle, to my mind.  The pages just ran out. 
> > The plot did wrap up, but it didn't feel very satisfying to me.
> 
> Huh.  I liked Cryptonomicon least of the three.  Very tedious and the 
> way all the pieces fell into place seemed contrived.  But there were 
> some good things in it.

Well, Snow Crash was more fun. At the end of Crypt, it felt to me like he
maybe got tired of writing, and wrapped it all up more quickly than he
should have - I mean, there was more storytelling that he could have done.

Tim,  ** warning ... spoiler ahead **  I'd say get back to it when you
can. It's worth finishing, IMO.




I was disappointed that General (colonel?) Wing didn't buy it in one of
Goto Dengo's traps. And yeah, it was all just a little too convenient the
way the pieces and people and places all came together, but then I don't
think it could have been as interesting a tale if not for that. I like the
way Stephenson writes, regardless.

OB for the "tech" list - the solitaire encryption is pretty cool, don'cha
think? As is getting Schneier to participate in your authorship process.
But I guess book talk should go over to the other list. And, I wouldn't
understand much of the technical discussion on the encryption anyways. ;-)

-- 
We're frogs who are getting boiled in a pot full of single-character
morphemes, and we don't notice. - Larry Wall; Perl6, Apocalypse 5